Alethia

This one may be a pregnancy hormone fail because all I got was strong and screechy champaca incense. Usually champaca plays nice on me but I truly can’t smell anything past it this time. I’ll put this decant aside to age and test again when I’m not pregnant because my hopes were high for this one!

This was a total fail on me. For the first or so, it’s sweet chewy rice but then it morphs into nothing but heavy indolic jasmine. Definitely not for me and I wish I could experience what some of the other reviewers are reporting!

Rose is a forever love note for me but I tend to cycle in and out of “I want to smell like rose” phases. As a result I went the decant route for this one just in case. The rose is bright and fresh and pretty without being wet or green like Rose Red. The milk is immediately present but definitely does not read as almond to my nose; it’s also not as thick or sweet as condensed milk but is just a nice creamy touch. The tea is bright and adds a welcome bit of astringency to keep this from being Too Much. By the end of the day, it’s mostly a creamy sweet smell with decent touch of rose. What it actually reminds me the most of is drinking Starbucks lavender matcha latte if you swapped in rose for the lavender. I really like it but I’m not sure I need a whole bottle. Definitely keeping the decant and we’ll see how much wear it gets before the Lupers come down.

Thoughts before testing: I adore grapefruit perfume and if there’s one note that will make me insta-bottle a perfume, it’s marshmallow. I have extremely high hopes for this given the above and all the glowing reviews. Wet: sweet, bright grapefruit and creamy vanilla marshmallows. Concurring that it’s 70/30 in favor of the marshmallow at this point. I’m in such trouble. Dry down: good lord this is incredible. The grapefruit completely vanishes after about half an hour and I’m left with these buttery, creamy, vanilla homemade marshmallow floofs. Like if you made rice krispy treats and forgot the cereal. Dry: I smell like a hot pan of homemade marshmallows with a lot of vanilla mixed in for literal hours to the point where my toddler got frustrated that she could smell marshmallows but couldn’t have any. Final thoughts: this is obscenely good. I’ve been rationing my final bottle of Stekk but this honestly blows Stekk out of the water. If you even think you’d like this, I can guarantee you will. And as an added bonus, my husband (who tolerates most of my BPAL and only actively likes Antique Lace, Stek, and Like the Very Gods) went absolutely feral when he smelled this. Verdict: this is a multiple bottle situation.

This is almost entirely a really pretty, sweetened musk on me. I love most musks and this was no exception. I get just the faintest hint of rose and I’m not exactly sure what suede smells like (leather-light maybe?) but I didn’t get anything beyond the musk and faint rose. This is pretty but I’m happy with my decant.

This is for the 2025 version. I love rose and candied/gourmands separately, but have never found one that really made me want a full bottle. Pink Fuzzy Handcuffs has changed that! On me, this smells like the fresh/dewey/bright rose of Rose Red got wrapped in cotton candy. Rose Red by itself is too green for me to wear as an actual perfume but the additional sugar makes me swoon. On the far dry down (like 6 hours after application) both the rose and cotton candy are mostly gone and it’s a sweet, gentle vanilla with just a hint of rose. This is a full bottle for me without a doubt.

I don’t know how they do it, but this smells like sticking my nose into a package of candy cigarettes while sucking on a root beer barrel: chalky wintergreen, flat almost spicy root beer. This lasted for about 2 hours on my skin and was completely gone by the 3 hour mark. Not a bottle purchase for me, but a wild scent experience and I’m glad to have the decant!

This is the epitome of girl perfume to me: it’s sweet (not gourmand or cloying) and smells pink and pretty. Strawberry can sometimes be unbearably loud on my skin, but everything here is so well blended that I just get this pink, sweet, girly smell. This is what I wanted Pink Moon 2024 to be! Not a bottle purchase for me but I’m glad to have tried it.

In the spirit of full honesty, I absolutely hated the way this smelled for the first full hour it was on my skin. The pumpkin rind was reading as green and sour, the lovely sweet orange disappeared within the first 2 minutes (literally, I timed it!), and it was just so weirdly unpleasant. But I got busy with work and at the two hour mark I started noticing wafts of something really incredible smelling and I realized it was this! It still smelled kind of unpleasant up close but from a normal distance was absolutely entrancing: sweet and musky and soft. It stayed that way well into the night and by hour 8 the skin smell matched the wafting smell. All this to say: I have no idea what happened here. It might be a pregnancy thing (although everything else in my order smelled like I predicted they would), it might be a weird bottle, I have no idea. Everything from hour 4 was a true delight so I’m willing to shelve the bottle to age and see what happens in a year or so.

I’ve been looking for a “my skin but better” perfume for a long time. Like A Girl was it for a long time but wasn’t available to repurchase when I finished my bottle (and I no longer have the patience/time to stalk swaps and sales). When I saw Like the Very Gods pop up in the 2025 Lupers, it was an instant bottle purchase even though I was worried about both the cedar and orris butter. I shouldn’t have been because this might be one of the best perfumes I’ve ever smelled across all the houses I’ve tried. All the reviews above are right: it’s idealized, sun warmed, summertime skin that’s just a little sweetly musky and just a little sweetly floral. This is a masterful fragrance and the only thing to do is debate with myself how many bottles will be enough.

I’m going through my BPAL box to see what needs to move on to more appreciative homes and found a bottle of Chimera that I purchased in November 2012. I’m exceedingly pleased to report that this nearly 13 year old bottle smells absolutely incredible and smells even better on my skin. I knew when I found BPAL that I was in it for the long game, but I truly didn’t expect perfume oils from 13 years ago to still smell so incredible. This is still mostly cinnamon to me but it’s a creamy, sweet, cinnamon without being foody or dry/dusty like some cinnamons can pull. A definite winner still!

Thank you both so much! Those both sound absolutely up my alley!

Necro-bumping to see if anyone has any recommendations for a white musk! I recently got a frimp of Fae which is lovely, but the white musk on the far dry down is absolutely enchanting. Any recommendations for something that’s heavier on the white musk that I won’t have to wait hours and hours for?

Thoughts before testing: pear is one of my favorite notes ever and I’m always on the lookout for a replacement for my long-gone Perilous Parlor. Wet: candied pear that still manages to be juicy. Crossing my fingers that this sticks around. Dry down: the pear is sticking around! It’s just losing some of that candied-ness and becoming deeper and more grownup. Dry: the vanilla finally shows up in a big way and it’s beautiful. The pear and vanilla are the stars here, and it’s reminding me a lot of a more sophisticated Perilous Parlor. Verdict: hoarding!

Thoughts before testing: this was a frimp in my most recent order and I can’t believe I’ve never tried it before! I love peach and white musk so my hopes are high. Wet: kind of soapy and herbal, not as sweet as I was expecting. Dry down: this almost immediately morphs into this really beautiful soft, sweet peach that isn’t candyish or cloying. The white musk is also pretty present and I think is doing a lot to rein in the peach and keep it soft and pretty. Dry: absolutely love this. It’s soft and sweet without being cloying and the musk/bergamot keep it grounded. Verdict: Full bottle in my next order!